Examples Of Greed In Popular Mechanics By Raymond Carver

The Oxford Dictionary explains greed as, “[I]ntense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food” (Ostler, 258). Humans are no strangers to greed. In small amounts, it is healthy and needed to be successful. However, once greed gets to a certain point, it can take over a person’s feelings and behaviors. Raymond Carver gives a sinister example of the consequences of greed in his short story “Popular Mechanics”. To provide scientific evidence, many studies have been done to try to understand the effects of greed on a person. There are many modern day examples of tragedies that have occurred due to greed. One example of this is the Menendez brothers and how they murdered their parents for their fourteen million dollar estate. Greed is a mental illness that in unhealthy amounts can alter a person’s behavior and feelings. Raymond Carver’s “Popular Mechanics” is a prime example of how greed can influence a person’s behaviors and cause a loss of common sense. The parents of a young child get in a serious verbal fight at first. Within the first few lines, Carver sets the mood by describing the environment and sluggish weather. He writes,“[C]ars slushed by on the street outside, where it was getting dark. But it was getting dark on the inside too” (Carver, 123). This can refer to the house from which this story took place, or refer to the parents getting dark on the inside as well emotionally. Carver does not give the father or the baby any names. From this, the characters can be

Greed has for example, been related to corporate fraud, which has resulted in the downfall of large corporations including Enron and Tyco. People also mentioned features that were related to superiority. It is likely that because greed is related to superiority they also think they can behave more selfishly”( Seuntjens,